


Ninety-Eight Days

by QueerImagination (overanxiousManiac)



Series: Healing [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bucky Barnes-centric, Healing, Hurt Bucky Barnes, M/M, Mentions of Death, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-17
Updated: 2016-10-17
Packaged: 2018-08-23 02:26:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8310172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/overanxiousManiac/pseuds/QueerImagination
Summary: “I’m tired,” Bucky confesses. The word tired can’t nearly encompass the physical, mental, and spiritual exhaustion that he feels. How does he explain the weariness in his bones? “I shouldn’t be here.”“The pain you feel is inescapable,” T’Challa tells him. Yes, Bucky knows this—he doesn’t need a scientist to prove this. “It will always, always be there, no matter how long you sleep. Sergeant Barnes, there are only two cures for the kind of pain that you feel—healing, or death.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> This follows the 'Healing' series.

After ninety-eight days, Bucky is awake. When his eyes open, he cringes, expecting the cold—expecting ice and frigid air. However, Bucky is met with heat. A warm, orange glow overtakes his skin, rising from the bottom of the chamber to the very top, to the peak of his head. The warmth is like a blanket, enveloping him; his skin tingles as his temperature rises. Bucky takes his first real breath. He clenches his hand to a fist, only to slowly release it. The walls of the chamber become transparent, showing him the room full of computers, machines, and three people dressed in white.

Bucky panics.

His body tenses. He is ready to fight his way out, ready to shatter the walls of this container. He doesn’t know these people; he doesn’t remember their faces.

Bucky steels his jar, squares his chest and lowers his eyes.

But then, _he_ comes into view, hands behind his back, dressed in black, with a soft smile on his face. He slowly reaches out to the chamber and presses his hand against the glass. A yellow beam traces the outline of his palm. Suddenly, the whole door is illumined, and a loud sound erupts from the side of the chamber, abruptly, the door pops and opens. Bucky’s heart is in his throat. He watches as this man—T’Challa, Bucky remembers his name now, finally—takes several steps back.

Suddenly, the space inside the chamber seems so small. Bucky moves, first his legs, to make sure that his knees will bend, and they do. All of his joints and muscles move with ease, no soreness, no aching—no pain. Even his hand, which so often ached when he would wake from the frigid cryochamber, is nimble and strong. He feels the absence of his left arm, ghost sensations in his shoulder, but he doesn’t dwell on it. Bucky comes forward and uses his right hand to push open the chamber’s door.

The people in white—scientists? doctors?—step backward, away from him. It’s good, Bucky thinks, to be afraid. They should be afraid of him; it’s only right.

His bare feet meet the cold, icy floor of the white room, and the uncomfortable sensation makes Bucky cringe. He stares around at the people in white, who are clutching clipboards to their chests. One of them has a syringe in hand, and Bucky knows that it must be for him—in case he tries to hurt someone. It’s a good plan.

T’Challa is still smiling, still motionless. He raises his right hand in the air and performs a quick, sweeping motion. Without hesitation, the three others turn and, in a single file line, exit the room. Bucky’s eyes follow the last one, the girl with the syringe, and makes sure that she takes it with her, far away from him.

Finally, T’Challa asks “Do you remember me?” in a low, steady voice. His accent is thick and Bucky has to pause in order to process what he’s asked. Bucky nods in affirmation, still watching T’Challa closely, carefully. T’Challa is completely still, but Bucky still scans his body, his clothing, to make sure he has no weapons.

“Good.” T’Challa nods. “Then you know that I am unarmed, and that I am not here to cause you any harm.”

Bucky hesitates. He doesn’t know that about anyone.

But he remembers. He remembers T’Challa, helping both he and Steve into the quinjet, rescuing them, bringing them clear across the world to protect them. He remembers T’Challa offering them a safe haven, offering them peace, offering Bucky the solace that he needed. He remembers.

Yes, he can trust T’Challa.

“Do you know where you are?” T’Challa asks. Bucky nods again—Wakanda. A place he’d never heard of until he’d been accused of setting off a bomb that killed their late king, T’Chaka. “This is good—you’ve retained your memories, then.” He has. He remembers everything.

Bucky’s eyes find T’Challa’s. Bucky is clenching and unclenching his hand, trying not to seem frightened and overwhelmed.

“Is…is he here?” Bucky asks in a raspy voice. His throat is dry and raw, but he still speaks on. “Is Steve here?”

T’Challa shakes his head. “He is not—he doesn’t know that I’ve woken you.” Bucky feels a strange relief in his chest. Steve is gone, and that’s good. It’s good, because Bucky doesn’t have to be faced with emotions he has no time to sort through. It’s good because he can’t hurt Steve if he’s gone—he can’t disappoint him again.

“Okay,” Bucky nods once, eyeing T’Challa suspiciously again. “Why did you?”

“I will explain everything soon,” T’Challa promises. “But first, I need to make sure that your body is reacting appropriately. Would you allow my doctors to come in and perform the routine health checks?”

Reluctantly, Bucky nods.

Without touching him, T’Challa leads Bucky to a silver stool on the other end of the room. Bucky sits down but he is still alert and very aware of his surroundings. The three doctors return, and he watches the third one set down the syringe on the other side of the room. Bucky breathes a sigh of relief. They perform a series of health checks—checking his blood pressure, his heart rate, his vision and breathing.

One doctor asks him questions about the last thing he remembers before going under.

He tells her that the last thing he remembers is Steve Rogers.

Eventually, someone brings him water, and food. Bucky drinks the water but he doesn’t eat. He can’t seem to find his appetite and even if he had, he doesn’t know if he can trust the person who brought it to him. There have always been so many people who would do anything to kill him—he can’t start being trusting now, just because this place _seems_ safe.

When they are finished, Bucky is left with T’Challa again. The man’s aura of calm helps lower Bucky’s anxieties. He notices Bucky shivering—the sterile room is chilly, and Bucky isn’t wearing much. T’Challa has someone bring Bucky a pair of shoes and a sweater to go over the thin tank-top he’s wearing. Bucky’s still cold, but it helps.

“Are you feeling well?” T’Challa asks.

Bucky nods, drawing his arm around his own torso. “I’m fine.” He assures. “Why am I awake?”

“We need to discuss your rehabilitation, my friend.”

T’Challa tells Bucky that he wants to monitor his brain waves. At first, Bucky doesn’t understand. What would that do? His brain waves are as normal as anyone else’s, for all he knows. He starts to beg the question, but T’Challa pulls out a pen and a piece of paper.

“I need you to write the words down,” He says. “I want to monitor your brain waves when you hear those words. We need to know what parts of your brain have been affected.”

Bucky’s mouth is dry again. His chest is heavy and his stomach is full of lead.

“No.”

He can’t.

He won’t.

Those words are poison, they are evil, and they’ve only been used to turn him into the monster he has tried so hard to run from. They have only been used to make him hurt people. They have only been used to wipe him clean, to take away everything that makes him who he is. He has never even spoken the words himself, afraid that the sound of them on his own lips would turn him into someone else again. He is scared, and his skin is crawling with fear.

“I’ll hurt someone.” Bucky continues. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

“You won’t hurt anyone.” T’Challa assures him. “You will not be given a directive. There is no mission. We only want to know what we can fix, how we can help.”

T’Challa’s voice is warm and soothing. Bucky knows that he can trust this man, but Bucky doesn’t’ trust himself. He can’t trust himself—he has never been in control.

Bucky picks up the pen. “Don’t let me hurt anyone. You can’t let me do that. If I try…stop me. Whatever you have to do.”

He writes down the words.

Each one in Russian, and then in English. His hands shake the whole time.

When he is done, T’Challa takes the list and tucks it away.

He tells Bucky that he’ll take him to a room so that he can rest. They go through the facility together until they reach the same sleeping quarters from months ago, when Bucky and Steve had first arrived. He is thankful for sleep’s reprieve; although his dreams are overrun with memories of Steve, he still sleeps.

For a while, all he _does_ is sleep.

The days…they seem to run together.

**___**

T’Challa makes him eat—food doesn’t have the same taste anymore. Everything reminds him of copper, of blood.

**___**

Bucky sits in a lab, his head tangled in a web of wires.

“They’re harmless,” T’Challa tells him.

But Bucky can’t help but be reminded of all the times Hydra had him tethered to machines that looked just like this one. He can’t help but be reminded that the wires usually conducted electricity.

He can almost taste the pain.

Later on, he apologizes for having destroyed T’Challa’s machine. Really, he hadn’t meant to.

**___**

When the brain scans come back, they are littered with red.

T’Challa points out all the spots in his brain that have been affected by Hydra’s conditioning. Like poison, it’s eaten away at him from the inside.

Temporal lobe. Parietal lobe. Frontal lobe.

These are words that Bucky vaguely understands, but he knows that this means that most of his brain has been compromised.

Everything that he _is_ has been compromised.

That night, he holds the scan to his chest and tries to keep the ragged sobs from escaping his throat.

**___**

The next morning, Bucky tells T’Challa “Put me back under,” He keeps the crumpled scan in his fist. “Nothing’s changed.”

“Sergeant Barnes,” T’Challa begins in a calm, tepid voice. “I cannot help you if you are frozen in time.”

Bucky shakes his head. T’Challa is wrong. There’s no helping him—the best thing for him to do is go back under, and keep from hurting anyone or destroying anything else.

“I’m tired,” Bucky confesses. The word _tired_ can’t nearly encompass the physical, mental, and spiritual exhaustion that he feels. How does he explain the weariness in his bones? “I shouldn’t be here.”

“The pain you feel is inescapable,” T’Challa tells him. Yes, Bucky knows this—he doesn’t need a scientist to prove this. “It will always, always be there, no matter how long you sleep. Sergeant Barnes, there are only two cures for the kind of pain that you feel—healing, or death.”

Bucky listens, _hears him_ , and yet he still doesn’t know which of the two would hurt less.

Healing or death?

**___**

Months have passed, and Bucky finally lets T’Challa use the scanner again. That day, T’Challa has the list of words in hand. Bucky shuts his eyes because he knows what’s written there. He remembers struggling through every letter, every syllable.

T’Challa only says two of the words and Bucky is trembling, dripping with sweat, as he resists the urge to destroy another machine and run for his life.

The scanner starts beeping furiously and T’Challa watches it, expressionless and silent.

This time, when the scans reach Bucky’s hands, he notices that the red splotches have shrunk.

A little.

**___**

“It’s the serum,” T’Challa explains. “The super soldier serum does more than just heal your body. It…seems to be healing your mind.”

“But the words…” Bucky begins, shaking his head. The scans show progress—he isn’t blacking out as much and the panic attacks have become less frequent, but every time he hears those words…

“Patience,” T’Challa says. “And time.”

**___**

“What do you want to talk about, James?”

He sits across from a black woman with a neat, tight bun, and a warm smile. Her dress is black, ordinary—commonplace. But Bucky knows better—most therapists don’t dress like she does. She’s here on account of T’Challa. Apparently, this is what healing looks like. This is what patience looks like. This is what getting better looks like.

Bucky thinks he looks like a fool.

“Bucky—my name is Bucky.” He corrects her. The name _Bucky_ is better—it sounds better. Fits him better, he thinks. And plus, Steve always calls him Bucky—it’s familiar.

The woman nods slowly. “Bucky, then. What do you want to talk about?”

 “I don’t know.”

“That’s alright,” the woman says. “We’ve got time.”

She asks him questions but Bucky struggles to answer. After their first session, he sleeps for two days straight.

They meet every two weeks.

After two months, Bucky talks about Steve. He talks about what he remembers from their childhood, from before the war and during. He talks about all the sweet memories they made together, about the _good_. When she asks about _now_ , Bucky doesn’t know what to say. He hasn’t seen Steve in months and he doesn’t want to—he can’t. He’s not ready. He’s still bad—not good enough.

“You don’t think you’re good enough to see Steve again?”

“No,” Bucky gruffly answers. “Steve…he’s good. And he deserves _good_ things, and good people. I’m neither.”

“You don’t think you’re a good person?”

“No.”

Not now. Not anymore. Not yet. Maybe one day.

“Why, Bucky?”

He doesn’t answer her.

For two more months, he doesn’t answer her.

**___**

When Bucky tells his therapist about Hydra, about what they did to him, about what _he_ did for them, he nearly passes out.

“And you believe that all of this was your fault?”

“It was,” Bucky tells her, speaking guilt through his teeth. “I…I killed so many people. Families—c _hildren._ Anyone they told me to kill, I did. They…messed with my head, made me do the worst things.”

His therapist watches him thoughtfully. “Repeat the last part of what you just said.”

“About…the people?”

She shakes her head. “No, the very last thing.”

Bucky is quiet as he thinks. “…they made me do the worst things.”

“So, they made you do it?”

“Yeah,” He pauses, grasping what he’s just said. Realization hits him hard, like a fist to the gut. “…Oh.” Is all he can manage to say. His words are caught somewhere between his brain, heart, and mouth.

“What I’m hearing is that you couldn’t control what they did to you, or what they made you do,” she says. “But you are in control now—you control what happens from here on out.”

**___**

T’Challa is able to get through at least four words on the list without Bucky falling apart.

The red splotches on the brain scans are smaller. Much smaller.

**Author's Note:**

> It's been forever since I've updated this series, but thanks to all who are still reading! You are all appreciated!


End file.
